Leibniz_Stepped_Reckoner_mechanism.png


Summary

Description
English: Photo of the mechanism of the ' Stepped Reckoner ' a prototype mechanical calculator invented by German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in 1671 and completed in 1694. About 67 cm (26 in.) long. This was the first calculator able to perform all the elementary operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The housing is removed to show the mechanism.

It consists of two parallel parts: the 16 digit accumulator section to the rear, and the 8 digit input section to the front. The input section is mounted on rails, and can be moved parallel to the accumulator with a crank and worm gear on the left end (the crank is removed and lying in the foreground), to align the digits of the operand with different digits of the accumulator. The 16 vertical wheels on the front of accumulator section are the output dials, with numbers 0-9 around their circumference that appear in windows in the top plate. The 8 shiny horizontal disks on the input section in front are the operand dials, with knobs for setting the operand into the machine. The crank on the front performs the calculation.

For more information see James Redin (2007) World of Calculators, A Brief History of Calculators Part 1: The Age of the Polymaths .
Date
Source Downloaded 2008-1-16 from Wilhelm Franz Meyer (1904) Encyklopädie der Mathematischen Wissenschaften mit Einschluss ihrer Anwendungen, Vol. 2 Arithmetic und Algebra , Druck und Verlag von E. G. Teubner, Leipzig, Germany, p.964, fig.11 on Google Books
Author Wilhelm Franz Meyer
Permission
( Reusing this file )
Public domain - Meyer died in 1934

Licensing

Public domain

This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 70 years or fewer .


You must also include a United States public domain tag to indicate why this work is in the public domain in the United States. Note that a few countries have copyright terms longer than 70 years: Mexico has 100 years, Jamaica has 95 years, Colombia has 80 years, and Guatemala and Samoa have 75 years. This image may not be in the public domain in these countries, which moreover do not implement the rule of the shorter term . Honduras has a general copyright term of 75 years, but it does implement the rule of the shorter term. Copyright may extend on works created by French who died for France in World War II ( more information ), Russians who served in the Eastern Front of World War II (known as the Great Patriotic War in Russia) and posthumously rehabilitated victims of Soviet repressions ( more information ).

Captions

Add a one-line explanation of what this file represents

Items portrayed in this file

depicts